


scar tissue

by himemiyaa



Series: goretober 2020 [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26785384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himemiyaa/pseuds/himemiyaa
Summary: Link considers the scars that the Shrine of Resurrection couldn't heal.
Series: goretober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949359
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	scar tissue

**Author's Note:**

> for october 2020 i'm trying to kick the shit out of my recent lack of writing by using aless-was-here's goretober prompts! here's day two, for the prompt "scars." i am sad about link! i hope you enjoy being sad about him too :)

Link has always healed quickly. They used to tell him it was a blessing from Farore. A gift, they’d say, to help him protect the princess. He doesn’t scar easily, either, skin mending and melting back into its smooth tan, pink lines receding into white lines receding into nothing at all — just skin. He wonders how long these scars will last.

Or, well— he wonders if he’ll live to see them heal. He’s barely conscious, but he knows this pain isn’t a normal pain. In fact, he’s losing his ability to even feel pain as the minutes go by and the Guardians encroach on the two of them. His feet are cold.

Link collapses, and it’s a wonder he stayed standing for so long; there are gashes in his chest and burns across his arms. His armor is tattered and shredded. Zelda is behind him, and he can faintly hear her screaming. Is it his name? Some curse? A final prayer? He doesn’t feel her footsteps as she races in front of him, though he feebly reaches for her ankle in an attempt to drag her back behind him. To the end, he’s responsible for her. He can’t let her die here, even if he himself does.

There is a blinding light he cannot identify and then, for Link, there is nothing.

-

He wakes up groggy and uncertain of himself. A network of scars covers his body and this, at least, he knows is strange: he’s certain he’s never seen any that look so old and so brutal on himself. Of course, when a disembodied voice begins to speak to him, they slip his mind in comparison to his confusion. As he makes his way out of the Shrine of Resurrection, the light feels blinding, and he has to shield his eyes. The world is beautiful, but he’s certain, _absolutely_ certain that it isn’t his. He can’t remember what is, but it’s not these ruins, these fields. His gut twists and he breathes quickly.

The first time he hears a Guardian’s beeping he has to spend a full minute crouching behind a wall, thanking Hylia its legs are broken and it cannot chase him down. Still, he feels himself light up with pain and clutches at his heart as if it’s going to stop beating, clamps a hand over his mouth in case it hears him.

-

Link sleeps under stars most nights, assuming he sleeps at all. He sleeps in his armor more often than not, prepared for a fight at any time. Even at inns, he prefers to sleep clothed — after all, what if an attack were to come _there_? The Yiga Clan, or a Moblin raid, or goddesses forbid a Guardian comes along in search of more lives to blindly destroy.

It happens, as well, that if he sleeps fully clothed he has less need to see the marred skin of his chest and arms. He knows there must be scars on his back as well. He knows that he died, that he _failed_ , and every mark the Shrine couldn’t heal is a reminder of that. They make him sick to look at. After all, what is a protector once his charge is gone? He’s _nothing_. Just a scarred body and a lost mind.

He failed once. How is he to come back from that? To ensure he doesn’t fail again? Proof of his mistakes are impossible to hide from, whether it’s the Zora reminding him that he may as well have killed Mipha or the littered corpses of Guardians that still managed to overwhelm him, to say nothing of the destroyed castle.

-

In a hot spring in the bitter cold he removes his clothes. He’s tired and bruised and knows his armor will do him little good if it’s as frozen as his surroundings. But it’s dark, at least, and the heat is soothing. It’s not so dark that he can’t see the scars, but dark enough to ignore them for the most part.

Some gift, he thinks, staring up at the stars. Courage keeps him going through these trials, make no mistake, and fresher injuries do still heal quickly. But it’s hard to think of _any_ of this as a blessing. No, a blessing would be peace. A blessing would be the chance to lay down his sword. To bring everyone back. To feel, for once, like a Hylian, rather than a tool.

Has he always felt like that? He isn't sure. He doesn't recognize his body anymore, not with these scars he can't remember. Is there any part of him that's the same?

A tear freezes halfway down his cheek before it occurs to him that he's cried it. He picks it away. He redresses, reclaims the sword that claimed him all those years ago. Maybe when it's all over, he thinks, he'll ask the princess if he's who he used to be — if he was ever anyone at all — ever more than scar tissue.


End file.
